Supervising the Media 'Classroom'

During the recent tumultuous national political season, much was
made of the irascibility or even outright anger of the electorate. Most
of the causes of discontent are not hard to identify--the arrogance of
office, legislative gridlock, negative campaigning, the apparent
corrosive effect of lobbyists bearing gifts, and so on. But, as far as
I know, no one has pointed out the connection between the voters' mood
and poor "lesson planning" and below-par teaching skills.

In this case, I'm not talking about classroom teachers, but about TV
anchor people and the media superstars who run the popular and
influential Sunday-morning panel talk shows.

Like most people, I get a huge chunk of my information from
television. So I did my civic duty and watched as much as I could of
the give and take from both sides of the aisle on the major issues of
the day, particularly healthcare reform and anti-crime legislation.

But the more I watched, the more my unease and confusion grew.
Admittedly, the issues are complex, and I may be a slow learner, but
with all the time and effort expended, some clarity should have
emerged. Clearly, something was wrong with the presentation.

Gradually, my focus began to shift from the politicos and the
pundits to the moderator, and I ended by evaluating interview and panel
discussions not as "shows" but as "classroom discussions." And based on
some of the pedagogic fundamentals I had learned and tried to apply in
more than 30 years in high school and college classrooms, the TV
lessons I observed, despite the glitz and slickness, were clear
failures. Moderators and interviewers were simply not very good
teachers and could have used the kind of supervision I regularly got
when my principal or chairperson slid unannounced into a rear seat of
my classroom, pad and pencil at the ready and critical faculties cocked
and loaded.

For example, the "aim" of one program after another was at best
murky and, even worse, misguided. Ostensibly, discussions and
interviews are aimed at illuminating the public on important issues.
But by the perverse standards of the news, media the fact of violent
disagreement is considered more newsworthy than the substance of
disagreement.

Therefore, charges and countercharges were consistently left hanging
in the air, unresolved. No competent teacher would allow contradictory
positions to remain unchallenged and undocumented. Does the legislation
under consideration really propose this or that? Would the crime bill
put 100,000 new police on our streets or only 2,000? When and for how
long? Would the health-reform proposals create a massive new government
bureaucracy that would increase expenditures or actually cut down on
costs? In that kind of situation, any English teacher worth his or her
salt knows enough to get right to the text.

But voters perpetually find themselves in an irritating intellectual
maze, confronted with a media storm of contradictory "facts." A recent
and typical example of what I'm talking about occurred on the
much-admired "This Week With David Brinkley." Vice President Gore
expressed his opposition to California's Proposition 187, among other
reasons, because he claimed it would turn the state's teachers into
policemen checking up on their students' resident status. George Will,
a regular panelist on the show, countered that, quite the contrary, the
measure would exempt teachers from such a role. Undeterred, the Vice
President, later in the interview, came back to this issue and claimed
that 187 would have teacher and principal gumshoes checking i.d. cards
and "turning alien children out into the streets."

Sitting in my den 3,000 miles away from California, I wondered what
was the truth. But the participants went on to other things and the
question was never cleared up. As a "student-voter," I was completely
confused, and another nettle was added to the growing irritation with
what passes for media educa-tion. And, as a supervisor-observer, I
would have to note in my report that Mr. Brinkley & Company have to
sharpen their focus on the "textbook" in question.

Another problem is that many interviewers and anchor persons act
like beginning teachers determined to stick to their lesson plan at all
costs, regardless of how the discussion develops. But experienced
teachers, particularly in English and the social sciences, know that
some of the best lessons are the result of scrapping a plan and
following a student reaction or question into an unanticipated
direction. But again and again the TV anchor-moderator clearly has his
inner eye on the question he will doggedly ask regardless of its
relevance and regardless of how provocative or startling the previous
discussion has been. It's as though the teacher hasn't been listening
to what the students are saying.

For example, in January, again on the Brinkley show, Sam Donaldson
interrupted Christopher Dodd in midsentence, while the Connecticut
senator was making a point about the loss of once secure jobs in his
state. They had been talking about the future of the American economy,
but Teacher Donaldson's inner eye was focused not on the topic under
discussion, but on whether or not Mr. Dodd was going to become
Democratic national chairman.

When that sort of thing happens, I have visions of thousands of
frustrated viewers raising their hands on the other side of the screen
with questions aimed at getting back to the earlier track.

Year after year, my colleagues and I in the classroom trenches
griped about how we were observed and written up by our supervisors
regardless of how competent we became, though I have to admit that
probably everyone can improve and sharpen his skills with some helpful
criticism. However, the national mood should tell us that we clearly
need the same kind of close monitoring of what goes on in our TV
studios. Media moguls should be required to take some education school
supervisory courses. Then we might get a better educated--and a more
cheerful--electorate.

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